How we could still have a President Trump

Though I only recently noded on The End of Trump 2016 -- and nothing has happened to ameliorate Donald Trump's long-since dwindled chances of winning election to office -- there is, I must admit, an overlooked possibility. No, I'm not proposing that Trump could eke out some surprise Electoral College victory. But he could stage a coup.

In the third and final Presidential Debate, Trump pointedly refused to accept the outcome of the election, should he lose. This is consistent with his rhetoric, and that of others in his camp, that the election is rigged -- that the voting machines will be rigged by certain Establishment GOP Governors, that the dead will vote for Trump, that the polls are falsified, and that the media reporting negatively on Trump (typically by broadcasting the words he has actually uttered) is a rigging of the election as well. And so any outcome not favoring him would be somehow illegitimate. And an illegitimate election outcome need not be respected, not by Trump, not by legal authorities supportive of his candidacy.

It is worth noting that Trump is hardly the only one with cause to complain of things being "rigged" against them -- Libertarians and other third party candidates have loudly objected throughout the process that they are locked out of the debates by arbitrary polling requirements which are hard to meet because pollsters often exclude these candidates from their questioning. Even Democrats complain, mostly about about the litany of measures taken by Republican election authorities to suppress minority voters, often by restricting the times and places of polling stations, or adding onerous registration requirements. There is some concern as well arising from Trump supporters announcing that they will stalk polling places to intimidate nonwhite voters.

Still, there will be no failure on the part of any other political party to recognize the result should the election go against them. If it goes against Trump (or, at this point, when it goes against Trump), there remains the possibility that he will seek to rally his supporters in an overthrow of the elected government, to declare himself President anyway and seize by force the reins of power, to physically occupy the White House and Capitol and Supreme Court, to seize control of the press, and to have opposing GOP Establishment figures (like the Bush and Reagan families, Mitt Romney, John McCain, John Kasich, and Paul Ryan) arrested and waterboarded or worse until they confess to some treason for which they can be executed.

Naturally, there is great remoteness to the possibility of all of this. It is much more likely that an attempt to usurp the electoral outcome will be met with the stern visage of traditions of law and order, and that Trump's protestations will be limited to lingering litigation. And indeed, at a higher level, a friend points out that Trump's declaration that he'll keep us in suspense about his intentions in the face of a loss essentially invites us to want to make him lose, just to see what the hell he does.